Run Bholaa Run
Film: Bholaa
Cast: Ajay Devgn, Tabu, Deepak Dobriyal
Directed by: Ajay Devgn
Duration: 2 hours 24 minutes
Rating: * *
A remake of the Tamil film Kaithi (2019) by Lokesh Kanagaraj, Bholaa is a bit of a mess. It is positioned as an out-and-out action film, but action with CGI that looks completely unreal has little or no meaning. Add to it the structure and editing of the film – at times you wonder about what is happening, and why – take for instance, in the middle of a fight sequence, it cuts to a girl in an orphanage waiting for a visitor with some melancholic music playing in the background. Considering that a sequel is planned (like the Tamil film), whether this film went through changes is anybody’s guess but it does appear to be a disjointed film. It is also a movie where the body count is excessively high. As he walks out of jail in slow motion, Makarand Deshpande gives an introduction of Bholaa (Devgn) to the inmates and the audience. He is a toofan and all that, we are told.
Meanwhile, in Uttar Pradesh, there is 1,000 crore worth of cocaine that has been seized by a top cop Diana, played by Tabu, in one of her most indifferent performances, but more on that later. She has smartly hidden the consignment in a bunker under the police station that was built during the British era. In this same antique police station, a state-of-the-art gun that can kill at least one person per second pops up in the climax.
The bad guys are led by Ashu (Deepak Dobriyal) who will stop at nothing to recover the consignment – there were possibly many other ways to do it but they choose the most difficult. Ashwatthama aka Ashu himself does so much cocaine that he reminds you of Cocaine Bear.
There are 40-odd cops celebrating the career and retirement of a senior police officer and they are at a place where the nearest hospital is 80 kilometers away – try and make sense of that, if you can. A medical situation arises and lady police Diana along with the caterer and Bholaa in the driver’s seat of a well-lit truck take the unconscious cops to the far-away hospital.
But since the cop knows of the exact location of the drug consignment she becomes the target of the enemy and the trio is attacked by men on bikes, men in jeeps, excessively oiled men in boxers (referred to as the kachcha gang) but with Bholaa around, there is nothing to fear. Single-handedly, he demolishes all of them, and with Shiv ji’s trident, he impales several of them in different parts of the anatomy and it is not a very pretty sight – a man’s teeth also fall out in slow motion, tooth by tooth.
The film gets into Mad Max: Fury Road at one point and there is a John Wick kind of “open contract” as well. The action, much like what we saw in Pathaan is very pedestrian – there are grand ideas executed with very little conviction. There are a couple of parallel tracks that run through the film. One is the police station that is deserted except for a newly joined constable (Sanjay Mishra) along with a group of detained youngsters who defend it (there is also a yawn-inducing chatter between them). The other is the young girl in the orphanage desperately waiting for the visitor who also happens to be her father. Gajraj Rao with an accent makes an appearance at the beginning and towards the end – what was his preoccupation during a large part of the film is unclear – but then there are many other things that are also not very clear that perhaps will be answered in the sequel, but I am not particularly eager to know.
Deepak Dobriyal starts off by being a bit over the top but eventually settles down. Tabu is usually spot on but this a lacklustre performance – perhaps even she couldn’t draw any inspiration from her character or the proceedings. Ajay Devgn as the actor is sincere as always but as a director, he falls for the trappings. And next time, can we have some genuine action rather than those CGI stunts please?